UK continues to spend 20% of the UK aid budget on asylum seeker costs in the UK despite planned cuts

Today, Thursday 3 April, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) published its provisional statistics on how UK aid was spent in 2024.

This annual publication provides an overview of the provisional UK aid spend in the calendar year 2024 and has revealed that the UK spent £2.8 billion Official Development Assistance (ODA) on costs associated with asylum seekers in the UK in 2024 (20.1% of total ODA), compared with £4.3 billion (27.9% of total ODA) in 2023 and £3.7 billion in 2022.

In 2024, the UK spent more ODA on costs associated with asylum seekers, than it did on bilateral assistance to Africa (£1.48bn) and humanitarian assistance (£1.4bn).

The UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) dropped from £15.34bn (0.58% of GNI) in 2023 to £14.07bn (0.5% of GNI) in 2024.

Today’s statistics also reveal that:

The Home Office spent £2,384million of the UK aid budget in 2024 (17%), £2,954million in 2023 (19.3%), while in 2022 this was at £2,397million (18.7%). This is a decrease of 19.3%. While this is a decrease from the all-time high of 2023, Home Office spending for 2024 is barely a change compared to 2022.
Bilateral spending saw an increase of 12.6% from £10bn in 2023 to £11.3bn in 2024 – making up 80.1% of total ODA in 2024.
Region-specific spending saw a 35% increase from £2.1bn in 2023 to £2.87bn in 2024
Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Africa in 2024 was at £1.48bn, an increase of 41% from £1.05bn in 2023
Regional specific bilateral ODA to Americas was £85million – a 14% decrease from £100million in 2023
Regional specific bilateral ODA to Asia was £1.04bn in 2024, a 48% increase from £705million in 2023.
Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Europe was £217million in 2024, a 15% decrease from £257million in 2023.
Regional-specific bilateral ODA to Pacific was £45million, a 844% increase from £5million in 2023.
Humanitarian Assistance was £1.4bn in 2024, a 60.5% increase from £882million in 2023.
Multilateral spending has seen a sharp decrease by 47.5%, from £5.3bn in 2023 to £2.8bn in 2024 – its share of total ODA is only 19.9%. The only time since SID data from 2009 that the UK multilateral spending was less than 30% of total ODA was in 2022 (24.6%).
FCDO region unspecific spending saw a rise of 81.5% from £2.1bn in 2023 to £3.9bn in 2024, making up 57.3% of FCDO bilateral ODA – in 2023 it was only 50.3% and in previous years under 50%.

Gideon Rabinowitz, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Bond, the UK network for organisations working in international development and humanitarian assistance, said:

We welcome the reduction in the amount of UK aid spent domestically on asylum costs, but this figure remains far too high.

As the government slashes the UK aid budget, continuing to spend £2.8 billion of UK aid in the UK on escalating asylum accommodation costs is unsustainable, poor value for money and comes at the expense of essential development and humanitarian programmes tackling the root causes of insecurity and displacement. It is vital that we support refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, but this requires its own budget and the ending the use of expensive and inappropriate hotels as accommodation.

At a time when the world is increasingly unstable, the government is abandoning marginalised communities and damaging its credibility as a reliable global partner. We urge them to rethink the cuts or at the very least ensure that the remaining limited budget is used for its intended purpose, to support communities in lower-income countries who face conflict, climate change, and poverty.

ENDS.

Notes to editors

The Statistics on International Development: provisional UK aid spend 2024 is available online.
In 2023, the UK spent more than a quarter of UK aid on costs associated with housing asylum seekers in the UK. Read Bond’s reaction.
On Tuesday 25 February, the Prime Minister announced that the UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) will be reduced by 0.2 % of GNI, to fund an increase in defence spending from 2.3 to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. This cut will bring UK ODA as a percentage of GNI to 0.3%. Bond is urging the government to conduct and publish an impact assessment on these cuts. Read Bond’s reaction.
According to the Spring Statement (p.25) the UK aid budget is planned to be reduced to 0.48% of GNI in 2025/26, and to 0.34% of GNI in 2026/27.
In a letter to the International Development Committee (IDC) Baroness Chapman confirmed that the UK aid budget will no longer be linked to changes in the UK’s gross national income and confirmed that the FCDO’s role as the ‘spender and saver of last resort’ will end meaning the FCDO will not be able to benefit from any improved GNI or any money recovered back from spending on asylum accommodation. Read Bond’s reaction.
Read Bond’s latest blog on the four ways the government can manage the planned UK aid cuts to limit their damage.
Read Bond’s latest briefing on how the government can limit the damage of the cuts to UK aid and development programmes, including reducing spending to BII.
Bond is the UK network for organisations working in international development. Bond unites and supports a diverse network of over 350 civil society organisations from across the UK, and allies to help eradicate global poverty, inequality and injustice.
For further information or interviews, please contact Jess Salter at [email protected] or call 07392972411.